Teenage Zombies (1959)

There MIGHT be some teenage zombies in this movie. We don’t see all of the zombies. The only one we get to know is this hulking lummox named Ivan (Chuck Niles) who walks with his shoulders tensed up, lifeless eyes and a low-budget make-up job that looks like an incomplete werewolf transformation. When Ivan shows up, some shit’s about to happen. Everybody’s gonna stop talkin’ and start screamin’. Ivan is an instant icon. Or at the very least he’s the most memorable thing in this slapdash cheapie from writer/producer/director/janitor Jerry Warren. Teenagers out for a good time find a secluded island somewhere near their little coastal town. It looks like a good place to throw a party until they find the evil, raven-haired lady scientist who’s created a special gas that turns people into zombies. She’s working with a few guys in suits to create a Weapon of Mass Zombiefication, to be dropped onto the United States. I THINK SO, at least. Jerry Warren deals out exposition like Yahoo mail delivers their terms of service. He just kinda throws it out there and you just kinda ignore it. Warren gets around his limited finances by burning as little film as possible. That means a lot of scenes that play out in a single shot with the camera sometimes a good forty yards away from the action. The second most memorable thing here (after Ivan) is the riotously clumsy climactic fight choreography. No one here has any idea what they’re doing or why. They look like a 7th grade wrestling team. You NEED to see it. My God.